Massive storms Part 2: Parasites and guns

If you haven’t read last week’s blog, you might want to start there as this is part two of that story. When I wrote my blog last Saturday Ian was feeling well again and we were going to take a day together to do some shopping, have a nice lunch, get a pedicure and then finally a date night. We spent the morning at the local craft market (one of my favorite places in any country), booked a pedicure and then headed for lunch. Suddenly my tummy wasn’t feeling well and I was starting to sweat. We all know that feeling, and Ian had just finished feeling that way for three days, so we quickly headed back to the hotel. I had a parasite, there was no doubting that with ALL the signs and symptoms included. I crawled into bed with a fever and Ian had to go out and get more medication as he had consumed most of what I had purchased.

 

Due to Covid restrictions in South Africa, pharmacies close at 3PM on Saturday and he was struggling to find a store that was open. He finally found one Dis-Chem pharmacy across the city and headed there to get my desperately needed imodium (now you know the real problem). On his return Google Maps brought him back to the hotel through downtown Joburg – not a good part of town, but he didn’t realize where he was until it was too late. He was stopped at a red light when a gang of 6+ men came up and banged on his window with a gun. His head swung to look at them just as the gun holder started to cock it. Ian says the man was high or drunk, or both, and it slowed him down a second so Ian hit the gas and squeezed in between two taxi/vans known as “combi’s”. As he wedged his way between them the light turned green and he took off out away from the men.

 

He arrived back in the hotel with medicine in hand, but quite shaken. Joburg is known for its car-jackings and violent crime, and if you recall in last week’s blog that was MY greatest concern as I was driving around the city trying to accomplish what we had gone to do. Needless to say, date night was off and we couldn’t wait to get back to our quiet mountaintop in Eswatini.  A day after we got home the border that we cross was closed again for several days and we were so thankful that we weren’t stuck in South Africa any longer than we needed to be.

 

So why did all that happen? We were looking forward to a much-needed break, had fun plans in place and then illness and fear took over. Meanwhile back at Project Canaan the hail storm raged causing damage that we are still trying to repair, destroying crops that are beyond repair. I’m not going to lie and say that we weren’t discouraged, or exhausted by all the craziness of the week, but I can say that we quickly right-sided our thinking and chose to look at the good side and the protection that was provided.

 

Ian wasn’t shot in the head and robbed of his car, wallet and life. We were able to get Imodium and the parasites that I am convinced came from the hotel food have left us. We did have a nice 14-hour drive in the car together seeing the beauty of the South African countryside along with the wild animals at the gas station (ostrich, rhinos, zebra, kudu, bushbuck and impala to name a few). 

 

 

We were able to support many local stone and wood carvers so that they can feed their families again and feel hopeful for the days and weeks ahead. We weren’t “needed” at Project Canaan during or after the storm, and while it is always nice to have mom and dad around during a crisis, our team is incredible and handled it all with professionalism and intentionality. No person or animal was hurt during the storm – everyone was protected. 

 

These beautiful Rosewood utensils will be for sale with our charcuterie boards soon!

Yesterday was payday in Eswatini (everyone only gets paid once a month) and that means it was a half-day of work. People leave work at 1PM so that they can all rush to the store to buy food for the next month. Many of them have little to nothing for the last 7-10 days of the month as their pay just isn’t enough to get them through, especially with so many mouths to feed in each homestead. We see it as a long weekend because we get a half day, plus weekend, with a relatively quiet farm. This weekend we will go for long walks with the dogs, sit at the amphitheater and watch for our neighborhood crocodile, take a nap, go to the soccer pitch with the kids and then enjoy some wonderful home cooked food and call it a date night. How much more could we ask for, really?

 

James 1:2-4 in The Message bible says,

 

“Consider it a sheer gift, friends,

 when tests and challenges come at you from all sides.

 You know that under pressure,

 your faith-life is forced into the open

 and shows its true colors.

So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely.

Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed,

not deficient in any way.”

 

May all of the tests and challenges that you are facing this week be allowed to accomplish the work that they are designed for.

 

Live from Eswatini … resting.

 

Janine

 

Massive storms this week - what do you do in a storm?

 

I feel like we have been hit with by many storms in the past week or two. First there was our own Covid-19 scare, which sent us all into emergency mode. While in the midst of that crisis baby Prosper’s mother came to us with a belly full of puss from the C-section, requiring an emergency trip town to be opened, cleaned and then sent back to us for medical care and a lot of TLC. After two weeks of care she returned to the hospital to be closed up. Now for the real emotional and spiritual healing to begin.

 

Ian and I really needed a break and while the borders to South Africa aren’t open for tourism (third wave about to hit us here), we were able to cross to visit our Zimbabwean stone carver friends in Johannesburg. Artisans all over Africa have suffered terribly as tourism is their only source of income and all tourists have stopped touring.  We were first approached by some literally starving artists in Eswatini, begging for our help. That gave us the idea of commissioning them to do beautiful hand carved jacaranda wood products that we can ship to the U.S. and sell on the Khutsala website to help them feed their families, and support Artisans of Eswatini, not just Khutsala Artisans. That product will be available at www.khutsala.com in August.  Since we were going to ship a container we thought we could buy and send some stone carvings to help those friends out too. So we paid $116 for Covid-19 tests, booked a nice hotel and left Eswatini while we still could.

 

Then the second storm hit. Ian got really sick the second night in Johannesburg with a very high fever and head ache.  OH NO!  Was it Covid? I automatically assumed that it wasn’t (I’m an optimist and we have been SO careful), but now-a-days we have to assume that it is Covid and seek testing and treatment. Ian could hardly walk, but he got up and into the car and we headed for medical attention in downtown Johannesburg, a city that we don’t know well and that I NEVER drive in. THAT was a long day. Hospitals here are in Covid crisis so only allow people in who are being admitted. Travel clinic wouldn’t see us without an appointment, which was impossible to make as they don’t answer their phones. So we ended up at a laboratory for blood work. Our doctor in Eswatini also suggested to test for malaria as high fever is a sign of that.

 

I am happy to say that both tests came back negative and Ian crawled back into bed for the next two days while his body fought off whatever needed fighting. Being in a foreign country, in a city that is not the safest from a crime standpoint (lots of car jackings) and the South African strain of Covid-19 made for a perfect storm for me. I am not a worrier, but what if it was Covid and I was in the same room as him? How will we complete the work that we had to do while here? How long would we be stuck in South Africa with an unknown illness? But the Lord kept reassuring me and reminding me of Joshua 1:6 “Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them.”

 

Not only was He reassuring me in my fear, but reminding me of why He has us in Africa in the first place.  Why on earth should I be afraid during this storm?

 

Then there was the literal storm on that was raging at the same time, but this one was back on Project Canaan. In a period of only one hour an angry storm ripped through the property causing a lot of destruction and fear. Marble sized hail pelleted the ground and piled up like small snow banks and remained in six inch chucks 12 hours later (IN AFRICA!). Here is just a small part of the reports we received from our Managers:

 

·      Estimated that 2 inches (50mm) of rain fell in 20 minutes taking our dams back up to their fullest ever with both dam spillways were overflowing again, but no damage to the dams.

·      There was a power surge on the power lines that fried the control board on the generator so everyone on Project Canaan was without power until that was fixed many hours later.

·      2 electrical poles fell at the dairy

·      Lots of trees fell on the electrical fences around PC and are still being removed and repaired

·      Water reservoir tank cover at the lodge was shredded by the wind

·      Greenhouse down pipes were blown from the gutters.

·      After getting the power up and running they discovered that we were out of water (278 children and 100+ adults with no water) and are still working on solving that issue today

·      An estimated $50,000 in damage to crops and fields, but no animals died

·      Almost all the shade netting at the schools and all children’s campuses were torn, shredded or destroyed

·      Damage at our house to the roof, lots of trees down, but house-sitter Nokwanda and the puppies are all okay.

·      Water seems to have come in to closed doors, windows and roofs all over the property

·      No people were hurt, and everyone prayed for protection through the storm

 

 

And in the midst of this third storm Ian and I were safe and sound in a hotel in Johannesburg while the rest of our incredible team on Project Canaan managed through the crisis, no doubt prayed as they went and then the sun came out. I can never say enough good things about our staff and volunteers at Project Canaan. I will give a big thank you to Denis in particular as he is the Maintenance Manager and is responsible for organizing and/or fixing all things that break. Walter our head Electrician is always there to fix any and all electrical problems and works tirelessly to keep us with light and clean water. Thank you to all the other people who helped at each and every step of this storm. We love you all.

I have attached photos throughout so that you could see a bit of what happened at Project Canaan, but be sure to watch the video at the end where Farm Manager Maganda shows us the ice chunk from hail at the greenhouse the day after the storm.

 

 

It’s Saturday morning and Ian is up and feeling much better. He will have some breakfast and then off we go to run all the errands that we had planned for the week. 

 

God is good, all the time and we give thanks in the knowledge that He is with us during the storms; surgical storms, Covid storms, fear storms, driving through Johannesburg storms or rain and hail storms

Joshua 1:7 goes on to say, “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.”

 

Live from Johannesburg … thankful for our hope through the storms of life.

 

Janine

 

Knowledge is power

Every day we work to educate and empower our staff and our children with knowledge, because we believe that knowledge is power (a phrase coined by Francis Bacon). Twice a month we host a guest speaker who presents information to all our 300+ employees by circulating around the farm and speaking to departmental groups about various important topics. Once a month the topic is health related (HIV, TB, Covid-19, STD’s, nutrition, family planning) and once a month it is a “social issue” topic (woman’s rights, children’s rights, domestic violence, incest). The topics are chosen by our Human Resource team based on what our staff are asking for.  These are kind of like a “lunch and learn” from my old marketing days, but with topics that are more life and death.

 

Of course our children are always learning and they are sponges for knowledge. There is no opportunity too big or small to teach a life lesson or something more practical. I often find myself telling stories of my childhood or passing along a gem of knowledge that my parents taught me, and the children always have many (MANY!) follow up questions.

 

A couple of weeks ago we had a few children who had very strange and serious allergic episodes causing us all to wonder what they had gotten in to. I asked our Farm Manager Maganda to come up to the children’s campus with Nurse Anthony to look around and see if we had any poisonous plants that the children might have come in contact with. HA! After we got a video, photos of poisonous plants and a phone call, Ian suggested that we never leave the house again.  Not only is Project Canaan covered with poisonous plants, some are even the beautiful flowers that the children will sometimes pick and bring me or to a teacher at school.  It was time for a new type of education!

 

Lisa from our U.S. office made the poster at the top of this blog that shows the most dangerous plants and we quickly distributed that to all staff. Next Nurse Anthony went for long walks with all the big kids (house by house) to educate them on how to identify poisonous plants, why they shouldn’t touch (or eat) them and what might happen if they do. Knowledge is power. I KNOW that the Lord has been protecting these children for nine years because no one has been violently ill (that we know of) from these plants, even though we pass by them every day.

 

Our three oldest kids (Phiwa, Rose and Gabriel) had a very special educational adventure last week when they enjoyed their 10^th birthday gift, which is an all-day safari at a real game park here in the kingdom (as opposed to a 2-hour game drive at Hlane when they turn 6 years).  When they returned they were anxious to tell Ian and me all about their day. Their report was incredible as they each shared the best part of the day (including the extravagant lunch that was Gabriel’s favorite part), but it was the level of detailed understanding that was bewildering. Not only did they love seeing the rhinos, but were quick to explain that they saw both white and black rhinos and what the difference was. They talked about plants and trees and then gave a detailed explanation of the three different types of meat they had for lunch, including Kudu.

 

I love that our children and our staff want to learn and seek knowledge. King Solomon wrote in Proverbs 1:7-8 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. They are a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.” We are striving to raise our 278 children to be wise, listen to instruction, obey and then enjoy living a blessed life of obedience.

 

Speaking of Solomon, just this week we received a newborn baby boy whom we gave the name Solomon, because it seems that we need the knowledge of Solomon more than ever these days. From Covid-19 to deadly poisonous plants, we are surrounded by danger, but we will not be afraid because we know that the Lord is protecting us.

 

If you would like to sponsor little Solomon on a monthly basis and help us raise him in the knowledge of the Lord, please do so today by clicking on one of these links.

 

Child sponsorship in Canada:  http://bit.ly/hfahopestartsca

Child Sponsorship in the US:  https://www.heartforafrica.org/HOPESTARTS/

 

Live from Eswatini … praying for wisdom always.

 

Janine

PS  Please be sure to watch this video of our Farm Manager explaining two very deadly and poisonous plants that are ALL over Project Canaan and all around the children's campus.  Sheesh!

 

Entitlement or poverty of spirit?

 

I had a really interesting conversation this week that I thought you might find interesting and shocking at the same time.

 

There is a woman who has worked at Project Canaan for many years and now she is considered to be very old (I won’t tell you her age for fear of confusion or offense). She is a Grandmother so I will call her Gogo and she recently retired after working with us for ten years. We continue to support her with dried food and medical care, but her daughter stepped into the job that she once filled and Gogo is at home caring for the many grandchildren who live at her homestead.

 

A couple of weeks ago it was reported to me that Gogo had been beaten by one of her granddaughters and was suffering with bruises and pain. Upon further investigation the story wasn’t quite as straight forward as that (it never is), but the bottom line was that the 21-year-old granddaughter had an attitude, was getting into trouble and couldn’t hold down a job. Jobs are very hard to find here, but both the Gogo and her daughter are both incredibly hard-working women and a wonderful example to the next generation, so I assumed that the granddaughter would be a great hire. Apparently not.

 

When I pursued the questioning further and asked why the granddaughter was not a good worker when her mother and Gogo are tireless and faithful workers, the answer was that the granddaughter had “been given everything in life and never had to work for it”.

 

This family is one of the poorest families that I have ever met in my life. They never have enough food, they never have enough money to send everyone to school, there are always holes in their clothes and leaks in the roof, but to them, this girl had been given everything.  My head was spinning.

 

That is a concept we are all familiar with and it’s called entitlement. We probably witness it every day in affluent areas, malls and families all around us, but I have always thought of it as being a rich people problem. I have been pondering this all week and have spent more time on this blog than I usually do, trying to figure out what I really want to say.

 

I am going to go out on a limb and say that her behavior was not about entitlement, but rather poor mental health due to living in a world of hopelessness (i.e. never having enough food, never having enough money to send everyone to school, always holes in their clothes and leaks in the roof). Yes, her mother and Gogo have worked themselves to the bone every day to provide for too many children left in the wake of poverty and disease caused by poverty and that is all she sees for her future. Why comply? Why not lash out?

 

There was an excellent blog posted by our Khutsala team this past week that starts by saying, “A lesser-known consequence of unemployment in Eswatini is poor mental health, especially among the youth.” It goes on to refer to a study “Exploring the relationship between unemployment and mental illness among the youth in selected communities of Eswatini” which got me thinking about the young girl in the story above.

During the month of March Heart for Africa focuses on the “P” in our HOPE acronym, which stands for “Poverty”. The longer I live in Africa and the more I learn about how culture, economics, disease and pandemics all twist together do NOT live in harmony, the more I see that poverty is not just about unemployment and lack of money. Habitat for Humanity wrote an article discussing the different types of poverty.  In it they say “There are two main classifications of poverty – absolute vs relative poverty. Both of these two types of poverty are focused on income and consumption. However, sometimes poverty is not only to do with economics, but it is also connected with society and politics.”  

What I am seeing here, every single day is beyond these two. I am seeing the poverty of spirit. 

 

Poverty of spirit (or you could call it hopelessness) can cause a mother to dump her newborn baby into a filthy pit latrine (outhouse). Poverty of spirit can cause a young girl to beat up her Gogo or have sex with an old man for a piece of bread. Poverty of spirit can bring death to our very souls if no light is shone into that darkness. 

 

Project Canaan is a city on a hill and we are here to shine light in darkness, bring hope to the hopeless and bless the poor in spirit through our words and our actions.

 

 

 

Matthew 5:13-16 says, “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

 

The Message bible translation says this, ““Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”

 

 

May the Lord give us strength to endure during these exhausting days of fear, discouragement and hopelessness and to reminder each other that Jesus is our only hope and He is all we need.

 

Live from Eswatini … it’s been a particularly hard week.

 

Janine